


Zero Sum

by mystivy



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 18:57:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/903714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystivy/pseuds/mystivy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's only when Rafa gets engaged to Xisca that Roger finally figures out what Rafa's been trying to tell him for years.  But what now?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Zero Sum

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of notes: Rafa says in his book that he calls Xisca "Mary" so that's what he calls her in this fic. Everyone else calls her Xisca. Also, I hope I got the members of Roger's team right. For the purposes of this fic, at least, his team is made up of Paul Annacone, Severin Lüthi, Pierre Paganini, Tony Godsick, Stéphane Vivier, and of course Mirka.
> 
> Massive, huge, amazing thank yous to Lucy & Antonia who are the best and most encouraging betas ever. This fic would genuinely never have been finished without their help and input. <333

The smell of summer green when they reach Halle changes Roger’s mood. It bothered him, the loss to Tsonga, more than he admitted. More than he admitted to Mirka, even. Arriving at Halle, to the countryside, to the tiny venue, to the Webers’ hotel, it’s like pulling a gate closed behind him and moving on. The Weber family meet them at the airfield and they take a couple of cars to the hotel. Charlene and Myla are tired, a little cranky from the flight, but they’re familiar enough with the routine by now. They’ll be fine after they get settled in to the hotel and have a little food. “Fries, if you like,” says Roger. “Or pasta?”

“Pasta,” says Myla. She likes it plain.

“With vegetables,” says Roger, negotiating. “You need your vegetables. Don’t you want to be healthy and strong?” He squeezes her biceps to demonstrate. 

She cocks her head to one side, thinking about it. “Okay,” she says, conceding.

“Good girl,” says Roger, kissing her on the head. Her hair is soft and smells like the shampoo Mirka gets for them, something like talcum powder and peaches.

The Webers are good hosts who know when to disappear, and so they are left alone to settle into the suite in the hotel at the club. It’s simpler than their usual accommodations, but it’s somehow refreshing. There are comfortable couches in the sitting room, upholstered in a pale blue, and there is a bowl of fruit in the centre of the glass-topped dining table. In the bedroom, the white linen smells of outdoor drying and there are small, ribbon-tied bunches of dried lavender in the drawers. “I love these,” says Mirka, holding one up and inhaling the scent. She opens her suitcase and begins to put away her jeans and tops. Roger arranges his racket bag and gear bag near the window of the sitting room. He looks in at the adjoining twin room, where Myla has taken the right hand bed and Charlene the left, as usual.

“I’ll order food, Mirka,” he calls into the bedroom.

“Okay,” Mirka calls back. “Order me something with pasta, too. I’m so hungry.”

“Sure,” he says, flicking through the menu. He orders two pastas with salmon in cream and dill sauce and two bowls of plain spaghetti with vegetables and salmon on the side. The receptionist tells him it will be about twenty minutes so he grabs an apple from the fruitbowl. He’s hungry, too.

“Are you going to play doubles, or have you decided yet?” says Mirka, emerging from the bedroom. She’s changed into yoga pants and a t-shirt and her hair is down.

Roger shrugs, biting into the apple. “You know, I think I’m in the mood to,” he says.

“It won’t be too much for your back?”

He was feeling the stress in his back a bit more these days. It had bothered him in Roland Garros, but Stéphane was working on it daily and it was already feeling better. “I think it will be fine,” he says.

“Good,” says Mirka, smiling, and Roger can tell that she gets it. Gets the change he feels when the season swings around to grass, when he leaves the dirt of Paris for the lawns of Halle, with Wimbledon just around the corner.

 

His revitalised doubles career doesn’t last long but Tommy is a good sport about it and Roger honestly doesn’t care. He is just grateful to feel the grass beneath his feet again, to hear that particular sharp sound of the ball on a grass court. His first singles match feels like clockwork. He has to be more alert, more focused than he might have been four, five years ago, but he feels everything clicking in to place. After the win he goes through the press and then strolls back through the hotel to the suite. They go out for dinner in town, just the four of them. Charlene takes a menu as if she’s reading it and they laugh, but later, back in the hotel, he says to Mirka that maybe it’s time they got some reading books for them and she agrees.

“Charlene, especially,” she says.

“Yeah,” says Roger. He’s brushing his teeth. He spits. “Maybe next year we should hire a kindergarten teacher.”

Mirka is brushing out her hair. It glows a dark gold in the lamplight. “That’s a good idea,” she says.

 

The semifinal against Tommy is a close one. He loses the first, wins the second, then goes down a break in the third, but Tommy is edgy coming towards the end, slightly overcooking his forehand, so that’s where Roger keeps putting it. And it works. He breaks back and breaks again, and wins.

They play the final under a closed roof and Roger feels from the start that Youzhny hasn’t a chance. He’s right. He takes it in two. It feels good to have the trophy in his hands, the first title of the season. Mirka and the girls are in the stands watching, along with his parents. They wave. Tony Godsick gives him a nod, man to man congratulations, and Roger smiles back. Paul, Seve and Stéphane are more animated.

Next stop, Wimbledon, he thinks, and he can’t help feeling that anything’s possible. Even eight. If Rafa can do it on clay, he reasons, he can do it on grass.

 

They fly to England on Monday. It’s drizzling when they land, and there are two cars waiting on the tarmac to pick them up. It doesn’t take long to get the luggage transferred and the girls safely strapped in and soon they’re on their way to SW19.

“I hope it doesn’t stay like this,” says Mirka, wiping away the condensation that’s already forming on the inside of the window.

Roger shrugs. “It’s England,” he says.

But the drizzle has cleared by the time they’re driving into Wimbledon, down the leafy streets around Southend and to the house they always rent. Mirka sighs contentedly when they get in the door and close it behind them. In the years before Myla and Charlene, they would take the house for the entire entourage, but since the girls were born, Paul, Francis, Stéphane and Seve stay next door and so they have the house to themselves. They take their cases to the master bedroom while Nina gets the girls settled into the twin bedroom. It’s decorated for them every year with princess beds and soft toys. Mirka thinks it’s a bit too pink, but the girls like it so she shrugs and leaves it be.

It’s not until later, after they’ve had dinner and kissed the girls goodnight and Mirka is upstairs unpacking, that Roger sits in an armchair and rifles through the magazine rack near the fireplace. There’s today’s Times and the remnants of the weekend newspapers, and some gossip magazine he’d usually ignore. But the photo and the headline on the front catch his eye: _Tennis Champ Rafa Nadal and fiancée Xisca Perello_ , with a picture of the two of them on some Mallorcan street and an inset close-up of a diamond ring on Xisca’s slim finger.

Roger turns cold. He stares for some time at that small, blurry photo of what is unmistakeably an engagement ring. It’s neat, nothing too flashy, a platinum band with a single diamond. It looks elegant against her tanned skin. In the main photo, Rafa is looking straight at the camera and smiling, holding Xisca’s right hand in his. Her hair is falling over her face. They’re both looking casual, relaxed. They’re probably going to the beach, he thinks, or to the boat, or whatever Rafa does when he’s home in Porto Cristo. Roger has visions of sun-drenched streets and open-air cafés and friends, lots of friends, with faces as tanned as Rafa’s and smiles as white, but really, he realises with surprise, he has no clear idea of what Rafa’s life is like away from the tour.

He stays like that, sitting still and staring at the picture. The more he stares, the more he feels he’s looking at a stranger.

 

He still feels unsettled and out of joint on the way to the club the next day. When his team speak to him, his answers are monosyllabic and he is not inclined to smile. Roger knows that he is at times difficult to navigate; Mirka is the one person who has always found a way to him. But just now he finds that he himself has lost his own bearings. He feels that he is groping for something in a cold fog, some indication of how to orient himself. The sensation seems only to intensify twenty minutes into his practice when he sees Rafa enter the practice courts with his team.

“Hola, Roger,” calls Rafa amicably across the empty court between them. He waves and smiles.

Roger smiles tightly back and says “Hi, Rafa,” before returning to hitting serves. Half an hour later, when he cuts his practice short to leave, Roger forces himself to smile and congratulate Rafa on his eighth title at Roland Garros. He feels there is a void where congratulations on his engagement should be but Rafa doesn’t seem to notice it. He smiles, his face creased with happiness, his dark eyes bright.

“Gracias,” he says, with customary modesty. “Congratulations for Halle,” he adds.

Roger shrugs his thanks. “So when did you arrive?” he asks. He doesn’t really care. He finds he just wants to watch Rafa’s face as he answers, he wants to look at him, gauge him to see if he is different now. And of course he is. Rafa has been different for some time, he realises. No longer the boy he used to play, the boy who was his one rival. Rafa has become a man without Roger fully noticing it until this moment. He is somehow calmer, more self-assured. Physically grown up, too. He is no longer the muscular dynamo of his youth but a more streamlined and well-tuned athlete. Roger nods as Rafa says something about arriving that morning and coming straight to the club. Behind him, Toni waits, nodding hello when Roger glances at him but betraying no impatience with the interruption of practice. That’s new, he thinks, as he says to Rafa that he’s got to go.

“See you around, sí?” says Rafa, as Roger turns to leave.

“Of course,” says Roger, shrugging. “See you.” Rafa holds out his hand and they half hug for a moment.

It is only in the car on the way back to the house, thinking back on the conversation and on the feeling of Rafa’s hand in his, of Rafa’s chest pressed against his own, that Roger finally identifies the feeling settled in his chest. He is furious.

 

“You’ve got the Times tomorrow at eleven,” says Mirka that evening, going over his schedule. “Then on Thursday you’ve got that photoshoot with Rafa and Andy, you know, the one in the London Eye?”

“What?” says Roger. He is slouching on the couch, his shoes kicked off and his feet up on the coffee table. The television is flickering silently, some British soap opera full of drama and bad acting.

“Remember, the one where they’re getting a helicopter? I told you about this earlier, Roger.”

He wipes a hand across his face. “Sorry,” he says. “I guess my mind was wandering.”

She puts her pen down on the day planner and looks at him with concern. “Is everything okay?” she says. “You’re so distracted today. What’s up?”

“Oh,” he says, dismissively. “I don’t know.” It’s mostly the truth.

She sits in the armchair, her legs crossed underneath her, the day planner balanced on one of the arms. She has a way of looking at him sometimes, a slight furrow on her brow, trying to figure him out. He feels childish, making her look at him like that. “Is it Rafa?” she says.

The cold washes over him again and he looks up at her. “What?” he says.

“You know,” she says. “Eight Roland Garros titles. I know you want eight Wimbledons now. You’ve always thought of Roland Garros as his and Wimbledon as yours.”

This is the moment, he thinks. The moment where he can pull out that magazine and try to explain, to articulate to her what he feels. Try to work out with her why he’s been overcome with this anger over something that has nothing to do with him. But something stops him. “I’ve been thinking about it,” he says, instead. It’s easier, he thinks, for now. It’s not entirely a lie, either. It has been on his mind.

“I know you can do it,” she says to him, smiling gently. Her confidence in him is unwavering. It always has been.

“We’ll see,” is all he says. “What’s this photoshoot in the London Eye?”

She looks back at her day planner. “They’re going to put you, Rafa and Andy into one of the pods and then take photos of you from a helicopter over the Thames. Suits and rackets, London skyline. It sounds kind of cool, actually.”

“Yeah, it does,” says Roger.

At least Andy will be there, he thinks.

 

It turns out Andy is not there, not really. “We’re going to put Andy into one by himself,” says the photographer. “Sorry, mate,” he says to Andy. “Might be a bit boring standing there by yourself for half an hour and everything, but we’ll tell you when we’re shooting through the radio and the rest of the time you can take it easy.”

Andy looks bemused as he puts on the earpiece.

“Roger and Rafa, you’re going to be together. We think it’ll be dramatic.”

Roger wishes he could turn and go, but Rafa just smiles and says it’ll be fun. They get earpieces, too, and the photographer tests the link. “It’s just one-way,” he says. “If you have any problems your end, just give us a call on the mobile.”

“Sure,” says Roger.

They stand on the VIP side of the queue, suits on and rackets in hand, waiting for the wheel to turn. The Thames is low and the faintly rotting, salty smell of silt emanates from its exposed mudbanks. Across the river, Westminster rises jagged into a grey-bellied sky. Andy gets in his pod first, giving them a slightly embarrassed wave as it begins to ascend, and Roger and Rafa take the next one. Rafa smiles apologetically at the tourists waiting to get on but they don’t seem to mind. They’re all holding their phones up, taking pictures and video. Roger remembers to smile. There’s a stylist fussing around Rafa, trying to fix his hair, but Rafa keeps unconsciously pushing it behind his ear.

“You’ll see us in about ten minutes,” says the photographer. “We’ll tell you when we’re taking the pictures.” He taps his ear and gives them a thumbs up.

“Sure, okay,” says Rafa, as the doors close.

And then they’re alone.

The ascent is slow, almost imperceptible, and yet they are already a little way from the ground. “You ever done this before?” asks Rafa.

“Once, for a champagne thing with the sponsors for the World Tennis Finals,” says Roger. “It was dark, though, so it was different.”

“I wish the sun was shining,” says Rafa. “Not gonna see very far today.”

“I guess not,” says Roger. He takes a seat on the oval bench in the centre of the pod and places his racket beside him. Rafa stays standing, his left hand on the handrail that runs around the interior of the pod. His fingers splay delicately, as if he is a pianist about to play. For all his strength, thinks Roger, he has such natural grace.

“Hey, I saw your video,” says Rafa, turning to him suddenly. He’s smiling. “What’s raclette?”

Roger huffs a laugh. “It’s melted cheese,” he says. You melt the cheese and then you have it with meat and potatoes. It’s Swiss.”

“Cheese is not my favourite,” says Rafa. “But I think it would be fun, no? If you really mean that invitation.”

“Of course I do,” says Roger, before he even thinks about it. “Maybe if you play Basel, huh?”

“Sure, maybe I play Basel this year.” Rafa shrugs and touches the tip of his racket to his knee. “Depends on how it is.”

“You could bring your fiancée,” says Roger. He feels as if he’s trying out the word, trying out the sound of it in relation to Rafa. It seems absurd.

Rafa only smiles wider, a little sheepish now. “You hear this, yes?”

Roger stands up again. They have risen a little higher now. “Yeah, I saw it in a magazine,” he said. “I meant to text you.” That was a lie.

“We were a lot of time together when I was injured, Mary and me,” says Rafa. “We never were seven months together in Mallorca before. Not ever.”

Roger leans a hip against the bar and looks at Rafa. “I guess I never thought how it’s different for you,” he says.

“For sure, no?” Rafa raises an eyebrow. “Mary has a job in Manacor, I am on the tour. Very different. It was nice, actually. Nice to spend so much time with her.”

“Figure things out,” adds Roger.

“Yeah,” says Rafa. “Figure things out. Then she came with me a little more for the clay season. I ask her to marry me after Roland Garros and she say yes.” He smiles again, the lines deepening in his cheeks and around his eyes.

“Sounds perfect,” says Roger. “Congratulations.” 

“Gracias,” says Rafa, and he puts his hand on Roger’s forearm, holding on for a moment. Roger can feel the callous where the heel of the racket lies. He takes Rafa’s hand as it slides away, some kind of awkward handclasp, all wrong because it’s his right hand and Rafa’s left. Rafa just laughs and curls his fingers tighter.

“ _Okay, Andy, you’re up_ ,” says a voice in Roger’s earpiece. He catches Rafa’s eye; he heard it too. Rafa drops his hand and turns towards the view.

“There,” he says, pointing. The helicopter is hovering out over the river, a photographer in the open door. They can’t see Andy from their pod but they can see that the photographer has started shooting.

“This is crazy, no?” says Rafa, vaguely twirling a finger near his temple. “I hope the photos come out as good as they want.”

“Yeah,” says Roger. “I hope so.” Spread out below the city looks like a jumbled maze. Charing Cross gleams dully across the river.

“ _That’s great, Andy. Just a few more._ ”

“I wonder what he’s doing?” says Rafa. “What are we going to do?”

Roger shrugs. “Just look out, he said.”

“Always feels so weird, I think, these photoshoots,” says Rafa. He looks at Roger appraisingly. “Always looks easier when you do it.”

“You don’t like doing photoshoots?”

“Eh,” says Rafa. “Sometimes it’s okay. Other times, not so much.”

“ _Okay, Rafa and Roger, you’re up._ ” Rafa gives him half a grin and a quirked eyebrow and turns towards the window. 

The next few minutes are spent standing by the windows, looking serious. Rafa stands to one side of the pod and Roger to the other and they gaze out over the London skyline, trying to ignore the helicopter not far away. Soon, though, the photographer’s voice comes through the earpieces again.

“ _Roger, if you stand beside Rafa, I’ll get a few shots of the two of you like that._ ”

Roger gives the photographer the thumbs up and moves towards Rafa.

Rafa briefly presses a hand to his back when he stands beside him. It’s a gesture so familiar. He has noticed that they always touch when they do photoshoots together. They always seem to clasp hands or drape their arms around each other or even allow their shoulders or feet to press together. 

“ _That’s great, guys. Just a few more._ ”

They hold a straight-faced pose, eyes in the distance, for another minute or so.

“ _Brilliant, thanks so much, guys. See you when you get down._ ” And with that, the helicopter is off.

“That was not so bad,” says Rafa.

“It was fine,” says Roger. Rafa puts his racket down on the seat in the centre of the pod and sits down beside it. He’s looking a little pale, all of a sudden.

“Can I tell you the truth?” he says, looking up at Roger.

“Sure.”

“I am scared of heights.” He looks half apologetic and half as if now the photographs are done he’s letting it all out. He takes a deep breath and grips on to the edge of the seat with white knuckles.

“Oh my god, Rafa,” says Roger. He stands in front of him, back to the glass and leaning against the handrail. He has some vague notion that he can protect Rafa from the view, though it’s futile, he knows. The pod is glass and there’s no escaping the fact that they are soaring above the city. “Why did you agree to do this, then?”

Rafa shrugs. He takes a deep, measured breath, and he’s keeping his eyes on Roger. “For the tennis,” he says. “This is a big photo shoot, no? Very expensive. They want me to come so I come.”

“How did you stay calm until now?”

“I focus,” says Rafa, putting a finger to his forehead. “I think about the photos, no? How they must look. They no look too good if I am scared like this, I think.”

“Jesus, Raf,” says Roger. “You’re too dedicated.”

Rafa just quirks a quick smile.

“Is there anything I can do? You know, to make it better?”

“Just talk,” says Rafa.

“About what?”

Rafa shrugs. “Just anything,” he says. He’s smiling in a gentle sort of way.

“Well,” says Roger, reaching around for some subject, and his mind alights first on his daughters. “I could tell you about Myla and Charlene, but I guess I always worry that it’s boring to hear about other people’s children.”

“No, no,” says Rafa, and he seems to mean it.

“Really?” says Roger. “You might be sorry you said that.” Rafa laughs and shakes his head. So Roger talks. He tells Rafa about starting Charlene on reading books soon, and Myla, too, so she won’t get left behind. He talks about how they like to choose their own clothes but they also like to dress the same, which sometimes means long mornings of wrangling and negotiation until they reach a compromise. He talks about Myla picking up a racket one day while he was training and finding a decent forehand, even with the racket too big in her little hand. They’ve started hitting a little with her now and then, though never when there’s any chance of the media catching a photo.

“And guess what, Rafa?” he says, grinning.

“What?”

“She’s a lefty.”

Rafa laughs, his face creasing up in those familiar lines.

“Hey look,” says Roger, nodding towards the door. “We’re nearly down.” They’re only a metre or two above the heads of the queue waiting for the pods. Andy is already stepping out of his, heading towards a group of fans that has gathered nearby. “I guess someone put it on Twitter that we were here.”

“I guess,” says Rafa. He stands up. “Thanks for distraction.”

“Hey,” says Roger, slapping his upper arm with affection. “No problem.”

 

“So how did Rafa cope?” asks Mirka, later, after he’s back from training and they’re eating in the kitchen.

“How do you mean?” says Roger.

“With the heights. Isn’t he scared of them?”

“Oh,” he says. “You knew that?”

She frowns. “I think I read it somewhere,” she says. “It’s a quote from his mother in a magazine or something. And he’s scared of the dark, and big dogs, and he hates tomatoes and ham and cheese.”

It’s such a small thing, but when she says it something in his chest wrenches and falls and he feels blood rush to his head. He takes a drink of water, more to let himself pause than anything else, and waits a measured breath or two before he feels quite able to speak. “I didn’t know that,” he says. “I didn’t know any of that.”

“I think it’s from the book, you know. The one he did officially.” She looks at him and he can see her register something strange in him.

“Have you read it?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says. “A couple of years ago, remember? I told you some things from it, like things about how he trained as a kid and what he says about Toni near the end.”

“Oh,” says Roger. “I had forgotten.”

Later, standing in the shower and thinking back on it, he feels so _stupid_. He doesn’t even know why, really. Why should he have known that Rafa hates cheese? And it was just a joke, anyway. One that Rafa seemed to appreciate.

But he cannot shake the feeling that he should have _known_.

 

He meets Rafa at training the next day. They chat and laugh and it’s only later, sitting alone on the bench in the locker room, that Roger finds he can finally articulate what has been on his mind. It seems to him as if all this time he’s been looking for Rafa’s face in a crowd, finding it only now and again, not often enough. Never enough. Every time they touch it means too much, every time their smiles catch there seems to be an undercurrent of heat that Roger has never before quite recognised. He recognises it now and it burns in his mind and in his chest.

He tries to get ready quickly, before Rafa comes in, but he’s not fast enough. He’s still pulling on a shirt when Rafa appears and opens the locker next to his. “Hey, Roger,” says Rafa. He’s dripping sweat and his hair is plastered to his head. He throws his baseball cap onto the bench and sits down heavily to start unlacing his shoes.

“Good training?” says Roger.

“Eh,” says Rafa, holding out his hand and shaking it, so-so.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” says Roger. It seems absurd to him to chat so amicably in the aftermath of such a revelation and yet it is the most natural thing in the world. Rafa looks at him warmly and smiles. He can sense other players giving them space, though the locker room is busy. He used to think that was because he and Rafa were the top two, by miles, but now he realises it’s because they are Roger and Rafa. Even the other players feel it, this thing between them.

 

It’s evening and the sunroom at the back of his rented house is almost dark and he sits there, staring into the shadowy garden, imagining another life. Maybe there was a time when he and Rafa could have followed some collision on the court with a more heated one after. He starts to remember certain moments when it might have occurred had he just taken the step. Like in Miami after their first match, after the ceremony in which the boy with the whip forehand held up the trophy that Roger had been so sure was his. He had just finished getting dressed when Rafa barrelled into the locker room and had come to a dead stop when he saw Roger standing there, about to leave. A smile spread across his face, and it wasn’t a smile of victory or conquest, but the kind of smile that said, _I’m happy to see you_. Roger nodded and went to leave but not before Rafa peeled off his sweaty shirt, his dark eyes still fixed on him, and the smile turned into something else. An invitation, maybe. A suggestion. A challenge. Looking back it seems ridiculous that he didn’t register it, that he didn’t feel it as he feels it now. How did he not think to make some enquiry at the hotel desk? “Which room is Nadal staying in? I want to congratulate him.” No one would have questioned it. He could have peeled another shirt off that tanned, taut body and tasted his skin.

Or—now that he’s started thinking about it, it seems so obvious—the Battle of the Surfaces. Rafa showed him around Mallorca with beaming pride and Roger can call to mind the smell of warm stone in the streets of Manacor, infused with coffee and restaurants and the exhaust fumes from mopeds, and the sound of smiling people drinking espressos and cool beers in street cafés. The shady courtyard of the building where Rafa’s family lived, with jasmine trailing on the trellised walls and cobbles underfoot. Rafa pointed up to a balcony and said that apartment was his, and maybe he would show Roger around later. Was there a glance, then? He recalls Rafa’s fingertips on his forearm, poised against his skin as if the slightest look or smile or suggestion would have resulted in something warmer, some wordless promise made between them. But he did not look and did not smile or suggest, and later, after a clamorous hour of pre-dinner drinks and multilingual conversations, they left the building and, as they walked amongst a crowd of Nadals towards the restaurant for dinner, Mirka took hold of his hand. He remembers being surprised at that. He wonders now if she saw what he had failed to notice.

And he thinks of other times: a muted conversation between them in Rome, once, in the players’ lounge at the club; gentle flirting at the exhibition in Seoul, Rafa coming over to sit so close to him at the end of the match; when he came to Basel, the look in his eyes once the press had left them alone and Roger had taken him to dinner; at the Olympics in Beijing, a few jokes together, a few words, Rafa’s hands resting casually now and then on his arm, on his back, on his chest. So many moments, so many chances. Then slowly, over the last few years, Roger thinks, perhaps there were fewer. Fewer significant looks, fewer subtle suggestions in his fingertips, until finally there were none at all. Why would Rafa keep asking if Roger kept refusing?

Because all this time, he realises, Rafa thought he was refusing.

From upstairs he hears the clamour of bathtime and bedtime and two fractious girls insisting they are not tired and it’s not dark out, so why should they go to bed? He knows he should go upstairs and help, say a few soothing, cajoling words to get them into their pyjamas. Maybe read them a story and let Mirka come downstairs and relax.

He doesn’t. He looks out into the garden, half-hidden in the gloom of the evening. Blooms have curled up for the night and there is barely a breath of wind. He can tell from the sky that in the west the clouds are aflame with the sunset but he can’t see it behind the garden wall and shadowy trees. He feels cold and stupid and he can’t believe he missed the signs. Oh god, he thinks, over and over. I missed them all.

 

His first match flies by. He feels as if he’s skimming the grass, as if he’s barely touching it. Physio and warm up keep his back feeling loose and he moves fluidly.

“You looked great, Roger,” says Seve, in the car on the way home.

“I felt great,” says Roger, grinning. “I feel really good.”

“No problems with the back?”

“Nothing,” he says.

When they get home, Mirka puts the TV on and he doesn’t mean to watch, but when he sees the score he finds himself sinking down to the sofa. Darcis is playing the kind of tennis only a guy with nothing to lose can play, while Rafa just can’t seem to find his game. Roger’s phone rings but he ignores it; Mirka takes one look at him, eyes fixed on the match, and she picks it up instead. She goes into the kitchen to answer it. Rafa keeps losing. It’s awful to watch but it’s impossible to look away.

“That was the Club,” says Mirka.

“Yeah?” says Roger, vaguely listening.

“They say you can’t have orange on the soles of your shoes.” Mirka’s laughing.

“Oh my god,” replies Roger. He’s paying attention now, laughing a little too, in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I wish,” says Mirka. “Wow, they’re really sticklers, aren’t they?”

“What did you say to them?”

“I said I’d get on to Nike.”

“I’m sure they have white ones,” says Roger.

And then he’s distracted by a roar from the TV. Rafa is walking to the net, grim expression on his face, and Steve Darcis has won the match. He missed it, he realises. He missed the moment Rafa lost.

It’s a subdued evening after that. They eat at the same time as the girls and then get them to bed with little fuss tonight. It’s as if they can sense that he’s fragile this evening, and in their own way they try to make him feel better. He tells Mirka he’ll stay with them and he reads to them from their fairy tale book until they’re dropping off to sleep. He presses a kiss to each of their foreheads.

Later, when Mirka is flicking through her day planner on the couch and the team has wrapped up the post-match analysis around the dining table, Roger’s phone buzzes. “ _Are you staying in the usual house?_ ” it says.

“Who’s that?” says Mirka, absently, writing something into her planner and marking it with a star.

He feels furtive, all of a sudden, as if he has a secret to keep. It’s an effort to say, “It’s from Rafa.”

“Oh?” She looks up at him. “I thought he’d be on his way home by now.”

“I guess not,” says Roger.

“Maybe he wants to say goodbye,” she says.

“Yeah, maybe,” he replies. “I’ll tell him to come over. Will I?”

She shrugs. “Sure,” she says. “I’m going to bed but I’ll wait to say hello.”

“Okay,” says Roger, feeling as if he’s engaging in some kind of duplicity. “I’ll text him back.”

She smiles and shuts her planner.

Ten minutes later, the doorbell rings and Roger lets Rafa inside. Mirka comes into the hallway.

“Rafa,” she says, kissing him on the cheeks. “So sorry about today.”

“Thank you,” he says, holding her hand and shrugging.

“I’ll let you two talk,” she says, heading upstairs.

They stand there in the hallway looking at each other for a moment until Roger remembers himself and ushers Rafa through to the living room. “Come in, come in,” he says, closing the sliding doors shut behind them. “Can I get you anything? A drink or something? A beer?”

“No, no, Rogi,” says Rafa, smiling. “It’s okay. I just come to say goodbye.” He looks a little melancholy.

“It’s shit that you’re out,” says Roger. 

Rafa sticks his hands in his pockets. “Yes,” he says. The strapping around his knee is visible under the hem of his shorts. It’s frayed a little. He hasn’t bothered changing it since the match. “You play great today, Roger,” says Rafa.

“You always say that,” says Roger, and maybe he’s teasing him a little. Rafa seems to understand. He’s smiling more genuinely now, traces of sadness leaving him.

“It’s always true,” he says.

He’s always been like a kid with a crush, thinks Roger. He’s always looked at him with wide eyes, with smiles that are half shyness, half joy.

“Anyway,” says Rafa. “It’s late. I just want to say goodbye, no? And best of luck for the rest of the tournament.”

Roger doesn’t want him to leave. All of those moments come back to him now, all those signs, all those missed opportunities. Here in the wake of an unexpected loss comes another. He puts a hand out and lays it on Rafa’s arm. “Don’t go,” he says.

Rafa looks surprised. “Don’t you have practice tomorrow?”

“It’s not early,” says Roger. It is, but he’ll reschedule if he has to. “I just…” he takes a step closer, his fingers now curling around Rafa’s bicep. Rafa is looking at him strangely, as if he can see the pieces but they won’t come together. “I hate that you’re going so soon.”

It must be the way he says it that makes everything click into place. Suddenly Rafa is looking at him with something like disbelief. “Roger,” he says, the deep Rs and soft G sounding to Roger like his real name, like something true and comforting and familiar. His hand drifts over the curve of Rafa’s shoulder and comes to rest on his face. Rafa takes Roger’s hand in his own and holds it. “Roger,” he says again. “What is this?”

“I realised a lot of things recently,” says Roger. He shakes his head and smiles a little. “I realised a lot about you. And about me.” He puts his other hand on Rafa’s chest, his palm flat against the breastbone. He feels it rise and fall with Rafa’s rapid breath. “I realised everything I’d missed before.”

“Everything you…” echoes Rafa. “You missed.”

“Yeah,” says Roger. “Things I didn’t understand, you know? Things you were saying to me.” He feels as if he is one side of some delicate curtain and the right words here would rip it down. He feels as if he could crash into another world, a world where he could forget everything else and take Rafa in his arms.

“What I was saying?” says Rafa. It’s not that he doesn’t know, but that he wants to make sure Roger does.

“That you wanted me,” says Roger. He’s almost astonished at his own audacity but it seems far too late to be cautious.

Rafa is silent for a moment. “You did not understand this?” he says, then. “All the times I try to tell you, you didn’t understand?”

“No,” says Roger. “I was stupid. I didn’t even think of it.”

Rafa’s fingers tighten around Roger’s hand. He steps closer, his face inches from Roger’s own. “And now you understand,” says Rafa. 

They are almost pressed together. Roger can feel the heat from his body. “Yes,” he says.

“Now, when you have children and a wife, and I am engaged,” says Rafa. 

Roger nods. “I know,” he says.

“When it’s too late,” says Rafa.

“I know,” says Roger, again. “I’m sorry.”

And then Rafa kisses him.

If a kiss can be punishment, then that’s what this one is. It’s hard and hot, and Rafa’s arms are wrapped around him like steel bands holding him in place. But Roger is not protesting. He pushes harder against Rafa’s body, he kisses back with the same furious insistence. Their fists are twisting in clothing, their breaths heavy against each other’s skin. They kiss with desperation. Roger doesn’t know how long it lasts, but it lasts as long as he can stand it. When they finally pull back they can barely breathe.

“I must go,” says Rafa.

Roger presses his forehead to Rafa’s. “Don’t,” he says. “Stay for a while.”

“I want to, Roger,” says Rafa. “But I fly to Mallorca in a few hours. And your wife is upstairs, no?”

Roger feels himself deflate. The overwhelming energy that has taken him through the last few minutes is dissipating. “You’re right,” he says. 

“Yes,” says Rafa. They gently disentangle from each other. 

“When will you—” Roger stops abruptly, glancing at Rafa’s knee.

“When will I play again?” says Rafa. “I don’t know. I must go to my doctor in Mallorca.”

Roger nods. “So I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”

“No.”

“Oh,” says Roger. “Okay.” It’s not okay at all.

Later, lying in the dark with Mirka beside him, Roger begins to feel the ache of separation. He has felt Rafa against him, he has tasted his mouth. He cannot imagine never kissing Rafa again or holding him again, or laying him down on a large bed and mapping every inch of his glorious body. His cock becomes heavy between his legs and he turns this way and that, trying to find sleep.

“Roger?” says Mirka, in a whisper.

He freezes.

“Is everything okay?”

“No,” he says. And then, “Come here.” He pulls her towards him and kisses her and undresses her and sinks inside her, just to feel skin against his own, just to pretend.

 

He doesn’t reschedule practice the next day and so he goes on court tired. He’s called Lleyton Hewitt to come and hit with him. He is only twenty minutes into it when he feels a sudden twinge in his back.

“Where is it?” says Mirka, quietly in Swiss German. There’s no one around who can understand. Grigor Dimitrov is on the next court over, and Feliciano Lopez is hitting with Fernando Verdasco on the other side.

“Same place,” he said, trying not to point it out. “Lower back, both sides.”

“Okay,” she says. “Do you want to finish up now, then, or keep going and just take it easy?”

He looks around. There are fans taking photos and lining up for autographs by the practice courts. If he leaves early, he knows, word will travel. “I’ll stay,” he says. “We’ll just keep it to groundstrokes, take it easy.”

“Okay,” says Mirka. “Good idea.”

He calls across the net to Lleyton across the net. “Forehands, okay?”

“Sure thing, Rog,” calls Lleyton. If he notices a problem, he doesn’t say.

Later, back at home, Roger climbs on the physio table and Stéphane gets to work. It’s more painful than usual.

“I think you’ll need a compression vest tomorrow, Roger,” he says.

“You’re kidding, really?” says Roger, sitting up and reaching for his shirt. “I hate that thing. I never feel like I can move in it.”

“Still, I think you need to support the muscles,” says Stéphane. “Taping isn’t going to be enough.”

“Shit,” says Roger.

 

He feels like it’s suffocating him, but he fights through the first set against Stakhovsky and takes it in the tie-break. Okay, he says to himself. This is fine. Two more and I’ll be off.

But it doesn’t go that way. Stakhovsky is playing the tennis of his life, he’s coming to the net, he’s running Roger around and Roger just can’t find his form. The vest is more and more of a frustration, and after the third he takes it off. He looks up to his box and shrugs at Stéphane. They’ll deal with the consequences later.

And then the fourth sets finishes just out of his reach and the match is over, Stakhovsky has won, and Roger is out of Wimbledon. He comes to the net and congratulates him, He’s still obviously incapable of entirely comprehending what he’s just done, but Roger already hears the headlines and commentary ringing in his ears. He packs up his bag with the knowledge of their inevitability: Federer is done, no more grand slams, the era of Federer is over.

The era of Federer and Nadal.

Inside the doors to the clubhouse is the winners’ board with his name on it. As usual, he glances over to it: Federer, Federer, Federer, Federer, Federer, Nadal, Federer, Nadal, skip a year, then Federer. Now, in 2013, there would be another hiccup in the fluid rhythm of their names. Or maybe the headlines would be right, and the name entered onto that list this year would be a full stop, an end to their combined dominance on this court. His legs are heavy as he climbs the stairs and the pain in his back has become sharp since he removed the vest. He showers and changes as quickly as possible, goes through the press, and heads home.

“I’ll call the plane,” says Mirka, as they arrive home. “I’ll tell them we’ll leave tonight. What do you think?”

He dumps his bags inside the door and goes to the kitchen. “Yeah,” he says. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I’ll call Anna and tell her,” says Mirka.

“Oh god,” says Roger. “Anna. Shit. Should we wait and have lunch with her tomorrow or something?”

“Roger,” says Mirka, coming to him and putting her hands on his face. “Do you want to hang around and have lunch with Anna tomorrow?”

He takes her hands in his own and squeezes them. “Fuck, no,” he says.

She laughs. “Then we’ll leave,” she says. “She’ll understand. Go upstairs and start packing.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and she throws a sardonic glance at him before she dials Anna’s number.

 

The whole team heads to Dubai, apart from Tony, who has business still in London. Stéphane, Paul, Seve and Pierre spend a lot of the flight in huddled discussion. Roger sits with the girls and Mirka, making sure Myla and Charlene eat enough and then pushing their seats back so they can sleep. They’re flying east, into the night. The lights in the cabin are dimmed and Mirka is drowsing in the seat opposite him.

“Mirka,” he says leaning forward towards her.

Her eyes flicker open. “Yes?” she says, still sleepy.

“This back thing,” he says. “What do you think, could it be serious?”

She pushes her hair back from her face and wakes up a little more. “Do you think it could be?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “It feels worse than last time. I don’t think I’m healing so well anymore.”

She nods. “Well, look, we’ll just have to get a medical opinion when we get to Dubai,” she says. “But really, it’s normal that you might be feeling things a little more these days. I’m sure we’ll just have to find a way to manage it, that’s all.”

“Okay,” he says. “Yes. We’ll get the doctor and take it from there.”

“Yeah. It’ll be fine, Roger. We’ve managed everything so far, we’ll manage this too.” She smiles, a smile that is suffused with faith in him, as if she’s never been more sure of him.

That’s when a sick little twist of guilt first embeds itself into his heart. Just forty-eight hours previous, he had kissed Rafa Nadal in the living room while she got ready for bed upstairs. Then he had treated her as some kind of replacement fuck.

She falls asleep properly, then, tilting her seat back and covering herself with a blanket. Roger stays awake, staring down through the clear night at the lights below. He follows the routes of unknown roads until they get tangled up in cities and he loses them, only to pick up another thread as they pass on.

 

The pain, says the doctor, is just something he’ll have to live with. Physio and painkillers should help, of course, but he gently infers that Roger’s not getting any younger, and despite his low-impact style of play—“Naturally, you’re nothing like Nadal,” he says—these injuries are going to crop up more and more, and when they do, they’ll take longer to heal. In some cases, they may never quite heal. It’s just something he has to accept. The doctor tells him this placidly, with the air of one who takes problems as they come, rather than someone telling Roger Federer that it might be time to wind up his career.

So Roger tells Mirka to contact Hamburg and Gstaad and tell them that he wants to play.

“Really?” says Mirka. “Back to back weeks of clay before hardcourts?”

“I need match play,” says Roger. “And Montréal isn’t for a week after Hamburg.”

“Okay,” she says. “If you think it’s best.”

He doesn’t talk about why he might favour clay, about who he might hope to see there. But there’s no announcement from Rafa’s camp and nothing in the press. Just a series of photos of Rafa in Ibiza surrounded by other bronzed, handsome, Mediterranean men and criss-cross yellow strapping on his knee.

 

The new racket is something he’s been thinking of for some time. The Wimbledon loss just made him push up the schedule, trying it out before the North American hardcourts rather than after, indoors, where it would be easier to handle. It works out reasonably well in Hamburg, where it’s his back more than the racket that cause his loss in the semis. In Gstaad, it’s a combination of his back and the racket. The frustrating limits of his movement combined with a racket designed less for precision and more for power result in a first match loss.

“I actually feel guilty,” he says to Seve, as they leave the picturesque town.

“Yeah, well, they did kind of build the whole thing up, didn’t they?”

“I guess,” says Roger, shrugging. “And the cow and everything.”

Seve just shakes his head and laughs.

After Gstaad, they split from the team for a few days. Roger and Mirka stay with Roger’s parents and let Nina take a few days off before they head to Montréal. He finds it relaxing to take a few days back home and to let Myla and Charlene spend time in their grandparents’ house.

“Well,” says Robert, on the night before they leave, “I’m glad you could come and stay.”

“Of course, Dad,” says Roger. “It was great to visit. But you’re coming to New York, right?”

“Yes, yes, I’ll be there. And your mother, too.” Robert is folding the drying cloth, having put away the dishes.

“Good,” says Roger. “I’ve got your rooms booked already, anyway.”

“You do?” says Robert, laughing at him a little. “I think you mean Mirka, hmm?”

“Yeah, well,” says Roger, laughing himself. “Of course.”

“She’s a good one,” says Robert. “Don’t let her go, son.”

“Dad, we’ve been married four years now.”

“Still, good advice always bears repeating, doesn’t it?”

“Oh my god, you’ve been saying that since I was two years old.”

“And look how you turned out!” He is grinning under his moustache. “Clearly it’s true.”

Roger shakes his head in mock exasperation. “Oh, clearly,” he agrees.

 

Montréal is pleasantly warm at this time of year. They arrive on Thursday morning and Roger leaves Mirka, Myla and Charlene at the hotel while he heads to the practice court with the team. His back is manageable, though even that bothers him. It annoys him that it is something that must be managed. He hits with Stan Wawrinka to test his endurance on hardcourt.

“Well?” says Mirka, later.

He shrugs. “It was fine,” he says. “I guess it’s something I have to get used to.”

She’s putting away the girls’ toys, which are already spread across the floor of the living area in the suite. “You will get used to it, Roger,” she says. She smoothes out the dark hair of a doll with a green dress.

“I hope so,” he says. He sits heavily on the couch, his feet up on the coffee table. They are calloused and pale. He needs to cut his toenails.

“Did you leave out your cleaning, by the way?” says Mirka.

“Oh shit, no, I forgot,” he says. “I’m sorry.” He pushes himself off the couch, though his back twinges when he does.

“It’s okay, Roger,” she says. She looks at him strangely. “We can put it out later, right?”

“Oh,” he says, deflating a little. “Sure. Sorry.”

“Stop saying sorry,” she says, laughing. “What’s with you?”

He smiles and shrugs. “Nothing,” he says. He knows his apologies are leaking out from that other place, the place where the taste of Rafa Nadal’s mouth and the feel of his body are branded in his mind.

 

He sees Rafa the next day. “Roger,” he calls as he’s leaving the club, the day before they both play. “You staying at the Ritz-Carlton, yes? Me too. Come on, my car is here.”

Roger calls back to Paul, who has stopped to talk to one of the Club officers. “Hey,” he says. “I’m getting a ride back with Rafa. See you at the hotel, okay?” Paul just waves him on and Roger climbs into the car.

“Sorry about Hamburg,” says Rafa. There’s no glass partition between them and the driver. He’s keeping it normal.

“Oh, yeah,” says Roger. “And Gstaad.”

“How is the new racket?” says Rafa.

“I don’t know yet,” says Roger. “It’ll take time.”

Rafa shrugs. “For sure,” he says. “It’s a big change.”

“I thought you might play some claycourt tournaments after Wimbledon,” says Roger.

Rafa catches his eye and Roger realises he’s revealed more than he meant to. It doesn’t seem to matter, though. Rafa just looks at him with a gentle kind of fondness. “I had to rest my knee,” he says.

“How is it?” He’s still got taping on it. Not the criss-cross taping of the summer but the regular white band just beneath the knee.

“Difficult to say,” says Rafa. “It’s always different in a match. I will see on Tuesday.”

“Who are you playing?”

“Ryan Harrison,” says Rafa.

“Didn’t you beat him at Indian Wells?”

“Yeah,” says Rafa.

“You’ll beat him again,” says Roger. He talks about Harrison’s backhand and his lacklustre serve until they get to the hotel.

“So,” says Rafa, as they step into the elevator. “You’re on the top floor?”

“Yeah,” says Roger. He’s suddenly uncomfortable, hyper aware of their physical proximity. He leans against the bar fixed to the wall of the elevator while Rafa punches the button on the panel.

But Rafa doesn’t punch the number for the penthouse. He hits seven, and then turns to look at Roger. His eyes are dark, all of a sudden, and his chin is set. It’s almost like a challenge.

Roger says nothing. When Rafa leaves the elevator, he follows.

 

Rafa’s hands are on him as soon as they’ve dropped their bags. He’s pushed back against the door and Rafa’s mouth finds his. Roger groans at the strength of the kiss. Rafa is touching him everywhere, pressed against him, his hands grasping at Roger’s ass. Then he pulls back as suddenly as he began, though just far enough to be able to speak. “I can’t stop thinking about you,” he says, his voice a cracked whisper. He’s leaning into Roger as if he can’t feel enough.

“I know,” says Roger. “I mean, same for me. I keep thinking about you all the time.” He’s holding Rafa by the waist and he slides his hands up under his shirt, feeling the contours of Rafa’s body, feeling the strength in his muscles.

“Come on,” says Rafa, and he turns abruptly, dragging Roger with him into the room. It’s a spacious room, bright and open, and it has been neatened by housekeeping, but there are signs of Rafa’s habitation everywhere: the mess of cables around the television where the Playstation is hooked up, the pile of trainers in one corner, a suitcase overflowing onto the couch. Roger has little time to take in anything more before Rafa’s hands are on him again, his face pressed against his neck. His stubble scrapes against Roger’s skin. “Can you stay?” he murmurs. “For a while?”

A rush of calculations in his head: spending time with the girls, with Mirka, running tapes with Paul, letting Stéphane work on his back. But none of it seems as urgent as this. “Yes,” he says. “I can stay.”

Rafa sighs into his jawline with relief and begins to nudge him backwards. “Bed,” he says. His eyes are half-closed and he’s taking little steps, manoeuvring Roger backwards until the back of his knees hit the mattress. Roger is almost woozy with the thought of it: going to bed with Rafa, being like this with Rafa. Kissing him and touching him and feeling him in all these new ways.

Rafa toes off his shoes and pulls off his socks, his eyes all the while fixed on Roger’s. Then he smiles delicately, deliciously, and kisses Roger again. He is gentle this time, and slow. He kisses Roger as if it’s a luxury he wants to savour, as if he wants to spend all the time on it he can. It’s all Roger can do to kick off his own shoes and then, as Rafa pulls back and puts a hand to his chest, he falls back onto the bed. Rafa watches him fall but does not immediately follow. He peels off his shirt and throws it behind him, and he undoes his flies and steps out of his shorts. Then he folds himself down on top of Roger in the bed, mostly naked.

“You are so hot, you know that?” says Roger. He feels a little foolish saying it but he can’t help it. Now that he can look, now that he’s really allowed to look, he just wants to take in the sight of him.

“You too, no?” says Rafa, still smiling. He sits up, straddling Roger’s hips, and pulls his shirt over his head. Then he slips his shorts off, and his socks, and they are lying skin to skin, almost naked, on his bed.

“This feels crazy,” says Roger, in a whisper.

“Sí,” replies Rafa. And then they’re kissing again.

It is the strangest thing to be allowed touch him, to run his hands down the length of his back and feel the glorious curve of his ass, to feel the expanse of his chest against his own. Roger can feel his cock, too, and he pushes up against Rafa’s erection. A flutter of eyelids, a choked breath; he can see in Rafa’s face this same sense of amazement at their sudden intimacy. Rafa’s fingertips are tracing his skin, as if he is mapping him and discovering his shape. Roger is mouthing along Rafa’s jaw, testing for the spot that makes him draw in a sharp breath.

They are reluctant to peel apart to remove their shorts so finally they squirm and push and kick them away. Rafa’s cock is hard against him. Roger wants to touch it; it is hot and silky and already wet at the tip. He takes them both in his fist and Rafa whimpers, resting on his elbows and pushing, and this—even this, it’s hardly anything, thinks Roger, wildly—drives them both crazy. The rest is hot and sweaty and a little frantic, punctuated with hiccupping cries and half-articulated pleas. It’s only afterwards, after they’ve finished messily and Rafa has collapsed half on top of him, panting and heavy-limbed, that Roger can even begin to think again. 

And he does. Even with Rafa still breathing heavily beside him his mind is already falling, all the things he shoved away to be here crashing over him again. Mirka, he thinks. Mirka must be wondering where he is. “Rafa,” he says.

“Mmm?” says Rafa against his shoulder.

“This really is crazy, though, isn’t it?”

Rafa rolls off him with a sigh. They’re both covered in come and Roger is cold, all of a sudden. Rafa throws an arm over his own eyes. “Yes, Roger. This is crazy.” He looks out from under his arm, one dark eye finding Roger’s. “It was crazy in your house in Wimbledon, too, no?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I guess it was.” They lie silent, for a moment, the air thickening between them. “I should go.”

“Okay,” says Rafa, and he rolls off the bed. He goes into the ensuite and Roger can hear a tap running in the sink. When he emerges, he’s holding a towel to his belly and he has a flannel in his hand. “Here,” he says.

“Rafa,” says Roger, trying to say something, though he doesn’t know what.

“It’s okay, Roger,” says Rafa. He says it gently, as if for all Roger’s inarticulacy, he already understands. He presses the flannel into Roger’s hands.

Roger washes and pulls back on his clothes, staring at himself in the mirror. He runs his fingers through his hair and lifts his jaw to check for the mark of Rafa’s mouth, as if somehow it would be impressed there. But there’s nothing. “Hey, look, Rafa,” he starts again. Rafa waits for him to say something but he feels a little helpless. Everything that has fuelled them to this point seems to have evaporated. “I don’t know what to do now, you know? I don’t know what comes next.”

Rafa presses his lips together and nods. “I think you go back to your wife and daughters, no? And tomorrow Mary will arrive.”

“Xisca’s coming here?” He thinks of the ring on her finger. He thinks of her smiling and holding Rafa’s hand.

“Yeah,” says Rafa.

It suddenly seems absurd to be here, to even be having this conversation. He nods towards the bathroom. “Better get them to change your flannel before she gets here,” he says.

Rafa’s face scrunches up and then he’s laughing a little. “Yeah,” he says, a little grossed out.

“Oh god, Rafa,” says Roger. And just like that they’re closing the gap between them again, finding each other in the mess. Roger presses his forehead to Rafa’s and they just stay like that, holding each other, for a moment.

“Rafa,” he says, eventually. “I have to go.”

“I know,” says Rafa. “I wish you could stay.”

“Me too,” says Roger. But he can’t, so he lets go of Rafa and heaves his bags from the ground. “I’ll see you soon, though, okay?”

“Yes, soon.”

The hopeful and earnest look on Rafa’s face as he leaves is almost enough to make him forget everything and stay.

 

“Hey,” says Mirka, when he comes into the room. “Paul says you were with Rafa?”

He puts his bags by the window. “Um,” he says, turning to look at her. “Yeah. Sorry. We were just catching up, you know.” The moment is worse than he had imagined in the elevator. She’s smiling, saying she’s glad, and asking about Rafa’s knee.

“Oh, you know Rafa,” says Roger. “He won’t know till he plays a match.” He can still taste Rafa in his mouth.

“Sure,” she says. “Well, Paul says he’ll be back in a few minutes. I think he’s gone to get Pierre.”

“Okay,” says Roger. “Are Charlene and Myla with Nina?”

“Yeah, she’s taken them out for a walk.” She has her day planner in her hand. “Want to go through your schedule till Paul comes?”

“Sure,” says Roger. He wishes the girls were here. He wants to be distracted. He does not want to sit at the table looking at Mirka’s earnest face while he is still half lost in the taste and feel and heat of Rafa Nadal.

 

He supposes, looking back now, that he has always had some kind of attraction to men. He never acted on it or even fully articulated it, even to himself, but he recognises that it has always been there. Marat for a while, maybe even Andy Roddick, had either of them taken the initiative. If they had, Roger imagines, they would have been more direct than Rafa ever was. But they had not. And so it is Rafa who finally allows him to fully realise this side of himself. He finds himself at odd moments—during practice or in the car to the club or watching TV with Mirka—contemplating the shapes of male bodies, not always Rafa’s, in new ways. But it is the thought of Rafa that makes him light up. He sees him in the players’ lobby at the venue with Xisca beside him, her hand entwined in his. Rafa catches his eye and gives him a small smile, and they do not stop to talk. Then, once the tournament begins, he sees him on the practice courts and in the locker room. He finds it a struggle not to look at him, not to openly stare. In wild moments of fantasy, not to push him back against the lockers and feel his dick harden in his shorts, not to sink to his knees to suck him off, not to feel what it’s like to be fucked. That one short afternoon in Rafa’s bed was like the breaking of a dam, and now Roger is flooded with a fierce desire, one that is burning him up from the inside. He is desperate to ask when Rafa will be alone again. He even wonders if he could risk something in his own room while Mirka is out with Nina and the girls. How, when, where, these questions continuously ring in his mind.

He loses in the quarters to del Potro and moves on to Cincinnati. Rafa loses to Novak in the semis and follows him. Roger gets a text with a suite number and a time, with a question mark at the end. When he gets there, Rafa explains that Xisca has returned to Mallorca for the week, and will be back for New York. His team think he’s sleeping. Roger says he told Mirka they were going to have lunch, catch up. And so they spend the afternoon of the Djokovic v Murray final in bed in a Cincinnati hotel. Rafa sucks his dick and then rolls him over and licks him. Roger makes a sound that’s half a laugh and half a moan so Rafa does it again, and Roger can’t help but press back against him. “Oh god, Rafa, more.” Rafa works him open with his tongue and his fingers and then crawls up his back and fucks him, hard and insistent, until Roger can’t even think anymore. He grips the headboard with one white-knuckled hand and with the other takes a hold of his cock. A couple of pulls and he’s coming so hard he sees stars. Rafa bites into his shoulder and Roger can feel him pulsing inside.

After they’ve pulled apart and cleaned up a bit and Rafa’s thrown away the condom, they lie together on the bed, Rafa pressed against Roger with his arm slung across his chest.

“I’ve never done that before,” says Roger.

Rafa smiles. “I think this,” he says.

“Oh my god, was it bad?” 

“No, no, Rogi,” says Rafa, kissing his shoulder and soothing him. “It was amazing. It’s just… you are very excited, no? It’s new, I think.”

Roger laughs. “Now I’m embarrassed,” he says.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” says Rafa, earnestly. “It’s good. I like it.”

“Well, I think I’ll always be excited, to be honest,” says Roger. That skates too close to the future, though, too close to questions they can’t ask yet, so he changes direction. “But it’s not your first time,” he says.

Rafa huffs a breath. “No,” he says.

“So?” says Roger, jostling Rafa a little with his elbow. “Who else have you done this with?”

Rafa laughs. “You sure you wanna ask me that, Rogi?” he says.

“Oh my god,” says Roger. “Someone I know? Someone on the tour.” Rafa lies back, his face scrunched up and a hand covering his eyes. “It’s someone on the tour, isn’t it?” says Roger, leaning up on his elbow.

Rafa uncovers his face. “Feli,” he says. “Long time ago. Before it was serious with Mary.”

Roger tries to picture it in his mind: a young Feli, a younger Rafa. “I always knew you Spaniards were close,” he says. “Wasn’t Feli with Verdasco, though?”

Rafa shrugs. “After,” he says.

“But they’ve broken up now, right?”

“I don’t know,” says Rafa. “I don’t think they know for sure.”

“Hmm,” says Roger. He lies down again, so they’re side to side. “I guess it’s tough on the tour and everything.”

“Yeah,” says Rafa.

The air becomes heavy, then, thick with things they need to say. “What are we going to do, Rafa?”

Rafa sighs. “I don’t know, Roger.” He rolls over Roger again, pressing a kiss to his mouth. “Maybe we worry about this another time, no?”

Roger runs his hands down Rafa’s back, holding him close. “Okay,” he says.

 

Mirka notices the mark later. “What is it?” she says, while he stands in front of the sink in his pyjama pants, brushing his teeth.

“What?” he says, angling his shoulder to take a look.

“It looks like teeth!” she says, laughing. “Did someone bite you?”

He feels a wash of crazy panic so he spits and rinses, taking a moment to compose himself. “I must have bumped into something,” he says.

“Something with a strange shape,” she says. 

“I guess,” says Roger. She keeps running her fingers over the purpling mark as if by tracing it she will discover what it is.

He pulls on a shirt before going to bed despite the Cincinnati heat. He sleeps curled around the guilt buried deep in his gut.

 

They ask him about his back in the pre-tournament presser at Cincy. “You had it taped in Hamburg,” says one reporter. “Can you talk about that?”

“It was just a precaution,” he says, with a shrug.

“So there’s no particular injury?”

“No,” he says.

“But there must be some specific reason,” says another reporter.

“I get a twinge there sometimes. I don’t think this is news,” he says. Subject closed, they move on. Later, with Stéphane’s fingers digging into him to get the blood flowing, he wishes it was really as irrelevant as he claimed, or that he could just refuse to talk about it. But an athlete’s body is not fully his own. In the early years, it has to be forced into shape, forced to move fast enough, forced to find the right shots, forced to instinctively make the right choices. Then it must be maintained: training and exercise never stop, liquid is hydration and food is fuel. A glass of wine or too much chocolate might make or break tomorrow’s match, so alcohol and dessert are pleasures often foregone. The body is clothed by sponsors on and off court, it is photographed by sports photographers and fashion photographers and through long lenses by paparazzi. Its height and weight are listed on websites. Injuries are not private, treatment is a matter of public discussion. But through all this it is obedient: it moves and reacts as it has been trained to do, even improving year upon year.

Then the body grows older. It is still photographed, discussed and debated, but now its failings become the topic of conversation. Is he slower? Is he less accurate? Is he less able to control his aging body? These are the questions Roger feels buzzing around him like flies. He experiments with the new racket and they say he is tinkering, as if they are indulging a fading star in his efforts to stay relevant.

“But I’m not _finished_ yet,” he says to Mirka, after he loses in the third round at Cincy. They are packed and ready to go, and outside the girls are waiting with Nina. The team are probably already in the lobby looking at their watches. Roger is sitting on the bed, his head in his hands, Mirka kneeling in front of him with her hands on his knees and murmuring, “I know.”

“Oh god, Mirka,” he says. “What if I’m finished?”

“Don’t say that,” she says, kissing his forehead and taking him into her arms. “It’s just a few matches. So don’t say that.”

He presses his face into her neck and holds her desperately close and they don’t move for some time.

 

The week before the US Open is always a busy one, always one guaranteed to steel his mind to the major ahead. He loves New York, loves the buzz of the city and the parties and Fashion Week, and it lifts him somewhat. Anna has invited them to a couple of shows, as usual, and there’s the players’ party to attend on Friday. The next day there’s a photospread in the New York Times. There’s one of Rafa and Xisca on the red carpet, flashbulbs reflecting in Xisca’s ring.

“They are such a pretty couple,” says Mirka, looking over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he says, and he means it.

“Did you see them at the party last night?”

Roger shakes his head. “No,” he says. 

“Me neither,” she replies. “I guess it was a big crowd.” 

“I guess,” he agrees.

It wasn’t that big. He saw Rafa during the evening, his suit not quite fitting, his hair slicked back in that way he did it because he could never be bothered to learn about hair products. When he caught sight of him, Roger casually mingled elsewhere. He could not bear the thought of them meeting up, Rafa with Xisca and he with Mirka. It seemed to him that he would break, somehow, if he had to navigate between two realities. It felt absurd that he and Rafa had only spent two afternoons together. Though he was still alight with its newness, he had come to feel that he and Rafa had been lovers for a long time. Years, maybe. There was already so much to lose.

Mirka leans down a kisses him on the cheek and says, “Well, tell him hi for me today at Kids’ Day, okay?”

“I will,” he replies. She pats him on the shoulder and walks away, calling to Nina something about finding hats for the girls in the sun.

 

There aren’t a lot of quiet moments at Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day, but while they’re standing to one side of the court, away from the mikes, and Novak and Maria are dancing to some tune Roger doesn’t recognise, he finds one. “We have to talk, Rafa,” he says.

He can see the same conflict in Rafa’s eyes as he feels in his own. “Yes,” says Rafa. “I think this too.”

“When?”

Rafa sighs and shrugs. “After the tournament, I think. Away from the tennis.”

“Okay.” A cameraman has just spotted them talking and is moving to get a closer shot. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Yes,” says Rafa, and they smile and laugh as if they’ve been joking all along.

 

Majors are the most intense two weeks of each quarter of the year, and this time he feels he has more on the line than ever. He tries to put the Wimbledon loss from his mind, but it’s still there, quietly echoing, and it will pick him apart if he thinks about it. So he does not. His routine at Slams is always the same and he sticks to it now with an obsessive focus. Off days: practice, relax, physio, food. Match days: get up, fuel up, tape up, drive out to Flushing Meadows, warm up, practice, locker room, prepare. Play. Win. Press room, smiles, the easy charm he knows he can use to his advantage. Sure, the loss at Wimbledon was a surprise, but at the end of the day, he lost a tennis match. It happens to everyone. He reached thirty four quarter finals, he doesn’t intend to equal that record with second round knockouts. He throws down the gauntlet, even though he knows he is throwing it down to himself.

His back is still a problem and it is still being managed. The first round goes to four sets, but he takes the second in three, so it’s fine with physio and tape. It’s only after the fourth round five setter against Ernests Gulbis that it actually pains him. Stéphane ices it and works on it but he still advises the compression vest again, and Roger reluctantly agrees. He’s using his old racket, and maybe that’s part of the problem because it’s forcing him to move just that little bit more, but he’s weighed up the risks and decided that for a slam, it’s better to go with what he knows. So he puts on the vest for the quarterfinal against Tsonga.

“Roger,” says Rafa in the locker room. “Good luck today.”

“Thanks,” says Roger. “And hey, well done for earlier.” Rafa had beaten Berdych in three. 

“Gracias,” he replies. He is coming from the showers, a towel around his waist, his hair wet and messy across his forehead, his skin glistening. It’s difficult not to think that it’s been more than two weeks since he’s touched him, since he’s kissed him. Rafa must recognise the look in his eyes because his own turn dark.

“Maybe we catch up later?” he says.

Roger looks around carefully. There’s no one paying attention. “How?” he says.

“I will find a way,” says Rafa, and he winks and grins and Roger laughs.

“Okay,” he says. “I better win, huh?”

“Yes,” says Rafa. “Win. See you later, no?” And he’s gone, back around the bank of lockers, and Roger hears Toni take up the threads of some conversation he doesn’t understand.

He loses the first set to Tsonga. Jo-Willy is jumping around, fierce and happy in that way he has, and in that mood he could run away with it, so Roger calmly tells himself that if he loses, he will spend the evening in a gloomy presser, followed by gloomy meetings with commiserating tournament officials and sponsors, and phonecalls from friends and family. He would then have to pack and get ready to leave. If he wins, there will be some stolen part of the evening free to spend with Rafa.

So he wins.

It feels like old times. A light comes on in his mind and his body responds, and he feels his muscles and his bones and his sinews obey him. Three more sets and he feels like he flies through them, straight to victory. Jo-Willy shakes his head at the net and tells him, in French, that he couldn’t have played better. “Bonne chance pour le titre, Roger,” he says, smiling, and he means it.

Mirka’s smiling face when she greets him outside the locker room causes a pang of guilt, but he’s swept on by the happiness of winning. He’s into another Grand Slam semifinal. He smiles through the presser and heads back to the hotel. He checks his phone now and then, but there’s no word. It’s only when he gets into the hotel lobby that the concierge hands him an envelope. He opens it in the elevator.

“What is it?” asks Mirka.

Roger can barely hide his surprise. “It’s from Rafa,” he says. “He says congratulations. He’s asking if I want to go to dinner.” She takes the card to read it and he barely suppresses the urge to snatch it back. He feels as if the truth must be evident in every line.

Apparently it’s not. “That’s so nice,” she says, handing it back to him. “He says just you and him, so I guess it’s boys only, huh?” She grins and nudges him with her elbow.

“I guess,” says Roger. He tries to go with the joke, though it feels stilted and forced. “Sorry. I don’t think Xisca speaks great English. It would probably be awkward if it was the four of us.”

“Oh, listen,” says Mirka, as they emerge from the elevator. “I don’t mind at all. I’ll put the girls to bed and get an early night myself, I think.”

“Okay,” he says.

“But you should relax,” she continues, slipping the keycard into the hotel room door. “You’ve got two days till the semi.”

“I will,” he says.

He texts Rafa while she’s in the other room. “ _Really dinner?_ ” and a response comes back, “ _Really dinner. Meet in lobby 8pm._ ” 

He leaves it until ten past because he knows Rafa is always late, and he’s still there first. Rafa appears at a quarter past, his hair still wet. “Sorry,” he says.

“Oh, don’t worry,” says Roger. “I’m used to waiting for you, huh?”

Rafa laughs a little sheepishly. “Come on,” he says. “We get a cab.”

“Where are we going?”

“A Japanese restaurant I like,” says Rafa. “Ukiyo-e, you know it?”

“I don’t think I’ve been there.”

“You will love it. Come on.”

There are some fans outside the hotel and they sign a few autographs before the concierge directs them towards a cab. There seems to be a kind of flurry of excitement that they’re getting in a cab together. “Where are you guys going?” shouts one fan. Roger just closes the door and waves as they pull away. The cab ride isn’t long, down to somewhere in Midtown just off Sixth, and there are no paparazzi outside. It’s a casual kind of place, busy and upbeat. Roger is glad he opted for jeans and a shirt.

The staff seem to know Rafa and they direct them to a booth in the back. “More quiet here,” says Rafa. 

“So now we’re being subtle?” says Roger, sliding into one side of the booth.

Rafa shrugs and smiles. “People will see us together anyway, no? So I think, no need to hide.”

“That’s a good point,” says Roger. “I mean, it’s not like they’ll think…”

“No,” says Rafa. “They will not think this.”

The table is a dark wood and there are already chopsticks laid out. Prints of various Japanese wave artworks hang over the booths but Roger only recognises the Hokusai. A waiter sets down their green tea and hands them menus. “What’s good?” says Roger.

“Everything,” says Rafa.

Though they had intended to talk about them, this evening, by unspoken agreement, they avoid bringing up the big things. It feels to Roger like an evening away from real life, an evening where he and Rafa can just talk about anything in the camouflaging hum of a busy restaurant, where New Yorkers either don’t know them or don’t care. They order plates of sushi and sashimi, and small wooden bowls of miso soup, and later gyoza and skewers of chicken teriyaki and a plate of yakisoba which they spill while trying to share. They talk about anything, conversation flowing from one thing to another, always diverting the stream should it meander too close to things that would cause them to stop and address the questions they had set by for now. Roger mentions Myla and Charlene but not Mirka; Rafa talks about his family and Toni but not Xisca. They vaguely talk about their upcoming semis, in which Roger will face Andy and Rafa will meet Novak. They don’t dwell on them, though. It feels too much like real life.

When they are finished, they leave the restaurant and hail another cab.

“Where to now?” says Roger. He doesn’t want the evening to end. “Back to the hotel?”

“Yes.” Rafa looks sidelong at Roger and gives him a knowing smile. “But maybe not to your room, no?” he says, in a low voice.

Roger wants to ask more but he doesn’t dare, not with the cab driver so close. Instead he waits, wondering what Rafa has planned, his body already hoping. 

The fans are still there outside the hotel so they mention something about having gone to dinner, as if it was nothing, as if they did it often. They sign a few more autographs and then go inside. As soon as the elevator door closes, Roger releases a breath and leans against the handrail. “I feel like everyone knows,” he says.

Rafa smiles gently. “You can go back, if you like, Roger,” he says.

“No, god, no, Rafa,” says Roger. “I want… I want this. It’s just difficult.”

“Sí,” says Rafa. “It’s difficult.”

The doors slide open and Rafa turns left along the deserted corridor. He finds room 1013 and slides a keycard into the lock. “I tell them a friend may come, maybe not,” he says. “So I get this room for him.” The room is empty, the amber light of the city seeping through pale drapes on the windows. “This evening I was late because I leave the things here, no? The things we need.”

This is the thing that breaks him. He thinks of Rafa planning this evening for them, planning dinner and then sex in this room, and the thought is so hot that he can’t get his hands on him fast enough. It’s a scramble, then, of buttons popped and flies unzipped and shoes and socks kicked off, and soon they are once more on the bed, naked and pressed together in the half-dark. They map each other with their mouths and trace contours with their hands. This time it’s Rafa who opens his legs and Roger pushes inside, until Rafa turns them so he is on top. He rides Roger, guiding Roger’s hand to his cock, and Roger has never been this turned on in his life. Rafa is leaning low over him, hands gripped on the headboard, sweat already dripping from his hair. “I dream of doing this with you,” he says, his voice low and guttural, and Roger wants to say that he hardly dared dream that it could be this good, but it’s impossible to articulate, impossible to do much more than move with Rafa and feel him tight around him, his weight across his hips every time he grinds down. Rafa comes loudly, and Roger follows soon after. They collapse in a mess, Rafa still sprawled half over him.

“Jesus, Raf,” breathes Roger.

Rafa, still panting a little, smiles against him. “You like this?” he says.

“Oh my god,” says Roger. “That was the hottest thing I have ever done.”

Rafa laughs. “Sí,” he says. “Me too.” 

But when he goes to bite Roger’s shoulder, Roger has to stop him. “Don’t,” he says. Rafa draws back, serious now. “It’s just, you did last time and Mirka saw the mark.”

“Oh,” says Rafa. He runs a hand across Roger’s chest and kisses his shoulder instead. “Let’s clean up and stay here for a while, okay? I want to lie with you.”

“What if we fall asleep?” says Roger.

“We won’t,” says Rafa. He kisses Roger again. “We won’t fall asleep.”

But they do.

 

Roger wakes with the light. He wakes slowly, coming up to consciousness with a sense of deep contentment. He is warm and languid. Rafa is wrapped around him under the covers, shifting a little in his sleep.

And that’s when it hits him.

“Rafa, Rafa,” he says, shaking Rafa awake.

Rafa wakes with a smile, but soon he too registers the morning light. “Oh no,” he says, and that is enough. They are out of bed as fast as they can manage, pulling their clothes on and pushing their hair into some kind of order. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” Roger is repeating, over and over. “Maybe it’s early enough?” he says, digging his feet into his shoes.

“I don’t know,” says Rafa. “Depends if they are asleep.”

Roger just nods grimly and gets ready to leave the room. “Hey, wait,” he says, before Rafa opens the door. Rafa turns to him questioningly, and Roger kisses him one more time before they go. “Don’t know when I’ll get to do that again, you know?” he says.

Rafa smiles. “Soon, okay?”

“Yeah,” says Roger. “Soon.”

They separate at the elevators, Roger heading up and Rafa down. The hotel corridor is suffused with the silence of early morning. He walks with quiet steps until he reaches their suite. He slips the keycard in and gently pushes the handle. It takes a moment after he steps inside before he sees Mirka sitting by the window.

She’s still wearing her pyjamas and she’s got her hair tied back. She doesn’t look angry. She’s sitting with a cup of coffee and her laptop is open on the table in front of her.

“Look,” she says, turning it towards him. “There’s a picture of you coming back to the hotel last night at eleven. Posted on Twitter with your username.”

There he is, his arm around some random fan, pen still in his hand from signing autographs. He barely remembers it now. 

“Where have you been? I called you half an hour ago but you didn’t answer. I didn’t know whether to get worried or angry.”

Roger digs his phone out of his pocket. Four missed calls. He pulls a chair out from the table and sits opposite her. “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he says, knowing how trite it sounds but saying it anyway.

“Roger,” she says. “I don’t actually know what’s happened. Rafa’s in the pictures, so I assume that you did go to dinner with him, but where were you since then?”

He isn’t prepared for this, not at all, but it’s happening anyway. There’s no way he can lie to her. “I was with Rafa,” he says.

She shakes her head, uncomprehending. “With Rafa? All night? Doing what?”

He guesses it’s the way he looks at her, and the way his hair is messed and the fact that he probably still smells of sex, but it all seems to click with her in an instant. She stares at him for a moment.

“The bite mark on your shoulder,” she says. “Was that Rafa?”

He nods, rubbing his eyes with his fingers. “Yeah,” he says.

Another quiet moment while she just stares, as if she’s assessing him. “You’ve been having sex with Rafa Nadal?”

It sounds so tawdry, put like that. He wants to explain to her, tell her how so much has changed, and tell her what hasn’t. He’s still her husband, she’s still his wife. But what does that mean, when just a few hours before he was on a date—that’s what it was—with Rafa, and then in bed with him? When the thought of never being with Rafa again, of never talking to him and spending time with him and kissing him and, yes, fucking him is impossible to contemplate? He doesn’t know how to answer, so he just answers, “Yes.”

She sits back in her chair, a hand raised to her mouth. “Wow, you know, I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that.” The morning sun is slanting in now, illuminating her in soft, golden light. She is entirely still, her eyes still fixed on him. "So when did it start? How long has this been happening?"

“Since Wimbledon,” he says.

“What?”

“That night when he came to say goodbye. I kissed him. He kissed me.” He gestures impatiently. “We kissed.”

“That was the first time?”

“Yeah.”

“But all those times before that he hit on you!” 

“I didn't know. I didn't know that's what he was doing.”

“You didn't know?”

“No. I know. It's stupid.”

She's silent for a moment. “And would you have been with him before? If you did know?”

“I don't know, Mirka. I just didn't know, so it doesn't matter.”

“Doesn’t matter?” She leans towards him, her knuckles white around her coffee cup. “Roger, all this time, I thought you chose me. Do you understand?” She waits to ensure that she sees it sink in. “I thought you knew it was him or me and you chose me.”

 

He doesn’t really remember, later, what he replied to that, or if he replied at all. He knows she stood up and said, “Okay, look. We’ll deal with this after the tournament,” in a way that left no room for argument. She said he should go to bed and get some sleep and she’d wake him around ten when Stéphane would be here to tape his back. So Roger had come into the bedroom, the bed still half rumpled where she had slept and his side pristine. He straightened the whole thing and then lay above the covers. He did not sleep. He watched the shadows move across the wall as he heard the voices of his wife and his daughters hushed outside. “Daddy is still sleeping,” Mirka said to them. If they asked why, he didn’t hear them.

He wanted to text Rafa, maybe to ask him about Xisca, maybe to tell him about Mirka, but reaching for his phone felt like one further betrayal. Mirka’s question kept ringing in his head: would you have been with him before, if you knew? Would he? The first thought that came to mind was no, of course not, because then he wouldn’t have Myla and Charlene. Anything that removed them from his life was unthinkable.

But before them, before he knew about his little girls, would he? Would he have left Mirka for Rafa? He didn’t know. And the question, anyway, might have become, would he leave Mirka for Rafa now? Is that even conceivable?

He turns on his stomach and pushes his face into the pillows. These questions are impossible. This situation is impossible. Mirka is right. For now, focus on tennis.

She knocks on the door just after ten. “Stéphane is here,” he says. He pushes himself up from where he has lain sleeplessly and pulls on a pair of sweatpants. Stéphane has the table set up behind the couch. Nina is packing rain jackets for Myla and Charlene into a bag. Mirka glances at him, and then says “You’ve got practice at three, and they wanted to schedule some pre-semi media stuff for four, but I’ve pushed it to five.”

She seems so normal and for a moment he’s so lost. “Okay,” he says. Stéphane and Nina don’t seem to notice anything.

The girls run over to hug him. “You slept late, Daddy,” says Charlene.

“Yeah, I guess I did,” he says, sweeping them both into his arms and landing heavily on the couch. He kisses them both. “Are you going somewhere?”

“The park,” says Myla.

“I’m going to miss you,” he says, and they laugh and tell him not to be silly, they’ll be back soon.

“You ready, Roger?” says Stéphane.

“Yeah,” says Roger, giving Myla and Charlene one last squeeze.

“You want to order something for breakfast, for after physio?” says Mirka.

“Sure,” he says, as the girls climb off him and follow Nina to the door. “Eggs, bagels, the usual.”

“Okay,” says Mirka, and she’s on the phone to room service. They both wave goodbye to Nina and the girls as they leave. “Paul and Seve will be here in half an hour, by the way,” she says. “They want to run tapes.”

It’s all so absurdly normal. Lying face down on the physio table, Stéphane’s hands digging into his back, getting the blood flowing to stubborn muscles, he tries to find some way to make it all fit, Rafa and his family and tennis and everything important. He can’t find one, though.

 

Late evening on Super Saturday. Even in the locker room, the energy from Arthur Ashe stadium is palpable. Roger can hear the roar of the crowds at every point during the fifth set in Rafa’s semifinal against Novak. He’s fought back from two sets down, and they’ve already played three tie-breaks. Roger has been ready to go on court twice already. Andy is the other end of the locker room, headphones on, running in place, lunging, swinging his racket. They’re both keeping their eyes on the match.

“Jesus,” says Seve, at 4-2 in the fifth, “I think he’s actually going to pull this one out.” He doesn’t though, at least not immediately. He loses the break and soon it’s 4-4, Novak going for broke, flinging himself in wild stretches across the court and capably dealing with Rafa’s high bounce to his backhand. If we play tomorrow, Roger thinks, that’s the shot that will break me. But that’s still a big if, he knows. His back is tight, none of Stéphane’s efforts really working it out. Pierre has designed a warm up especially to loosen it out and get it supple, but that doesn’t seem to have worked either. He’s had the vest on for hours. 

It’s dark by the time Rafa wins. When he falls to the ground, Roger lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. The crowd is thunderous.

“Come on, Roger,” says Pierre, rousing him to warm up.

“Right,” he says. The camera focuses on Xisca in the crowd, the ring bright on her finger and a look on her face so earnestly happy and relieved that all the can think is, she doesn’t know. There’s no way she knows.

He’s almost ready to go when Rafa finally comes back to the locker room. They reach out to each other, just a quick touch of hands. “Amazing match, Rafa,” says Roger.

“See you tomorrow, no?” says Rafa, with a smile.

Of course there’s already talk of a Fedal final, the first one since Roland Garros 2011. As Roger leads the way through the tunnel, he can feel the buzz in the air, that very specific sense of anticipation that only the possibility of a Grand Slam final between him and Rafa engenders in tennis fans. They’ve never played on this court and the US crowds are hungry for it. The roar when he emerges from the tunnel is deafening.

But the match is a mess. Andy spots early on that his movement is restricted, especially out wide on the backhand side, so that’s where he puts it. Roger fights, he fights against Andy, against his own body, against the sense of inevitability that settles in two sets and a break down, but he can’t fight hard enough and Andy takes it in straight sets. It’s a demolition. He regularly looks to his box, Mirka there, as staunch as ever, and he watches their faces fall. Whatever had carried him this far, whatever had fuelled him, has dissipated. He goes down three, three and two in the end.

He focuses on the positives with the media, of course. He says he’s disappointed but overall he’s pretty happy with a semifinal. It’s a good result.

“Your movement seemed restricted, Roger. Can you comment on that?”

He shrugs. “Not really. No particular problem with movement. Andy just played better.”

“So this had nothing to do with your back?”

“Look, this isn’t the time to talk about injuries, you know? Andy was a better player today, that’s all.”

“So there is an injury?”

He fixes the reporter with a stare. “I think I said before,” he says, “it’s just a twinge. It’s normal. No injury.”

“Roger, will you be watching tomorrow’s final?”

“Oh my god, this question again.” He shakes his head. “You know what? Maybe I will. It’s going to be a good one. I hope Rafa wins.” He pauses. “Is that what you wanted to hear? I never really know what you want to hear with that question.”

They move on.

 

Mirka is quiet on the way back to the hotel. Seve and Paul are upbeat, focusing on the positives, but it’s Mirka’s silence that he notices most of all. Myla and Charlene are long in bed by the time they get back to the suite and they tiptoe in to kiss them goodnight. It’s only when they’re back in the bedroom that Mirka says, “So, do you want to leave tomorrow, or do you want to stay?” She says it mildly, as if she’s talking about taking a trip somewhere or going on vacation.

Roger sinks into a chair. “We’ll leave, as usual,” he says.

She takes off her earrings and leaves them on the dressing table. “Not really as usual, though,” she says, glancing at him.

Roger watches her as she slips her watch from her wrist and unclasps her necklace. “Let’s just keep it as usual, for now,” he says.

She turns in her chair. “Until we get home,” she says. “Then we have to talk.”

He nods. “Okay.”

When she sleeps, she sleeps facing away from him. He wants to reach across the space between them and curl up behind her, bury his face against her. But he no longer has any right to touch her, so he sleeps on his side of the bed, alone.

They don’t leave New York until late afternoon so they’re in the air throughout the final. Roger only hears later that Rafa has won. He stands on the balcony of his Dubai apartment and sends him a text: “ _Congratulations, Rafa. You’re catching up on me. :-)_ ”

The reply comes almost immediately. “ _Thank you, Rogi. I wish I beat you. ;-)_ ”

Roger laughs quietly. “ _You’re lucky it wasn’t me._ ”

Mirka gives him a few days, waiting for him to talk. The days are busy: he has a meeting with the guy from Wilson down at the club, coming up with ideas for fine tuning the racket further. It still feels strange in his hand, the extra space on the racket head unnatural to him. There are also meetings with Nike as they finalise his gear for Brisbane and the Australian Open. A film crew comes to film a promo for Basel, and Mirka and Tony are fielding calls from London to schedule WTF promos and some event for Gillette. Paul has stayed in the States for a couple of weeks but Roger has to keep training with Pierre and working with Stéphane to keep his back relaxed. 

“You’re carrying tension, Roger,” says Stéphane. “Whatever it is, it’s not helping.”

Roger makes a joke about it, but he knows it’s true.

Every day, he and Mirka keep conversation to business and the girls, and every night they sleep in the same bed with a gulf between them. It’s Thursday before she finally finds a moment for them to be alone. “Roger,” she says, “I hate this. We have to talk about it.”

It’s late afternoon and the blinds are drawn low. She sits on the cream coloured sofa, her legs crossed beneath her. Roger takes a seat in a low chair opposite her. “I know,” he says. “I hate it too.”

“I don’t know what to say to you,” she says. “I feel like I’m waiting for you to make a decision I thought you made years ago. I don’t know if it should be yours to make anymore.”

“Mirka,” he says, feeling uncomfortable and inarticulate. “I don’t know if I have any decision to make, you know?”

She looks at him with narrowed eyes. “Roger, it’s not about him. It’s about you and me.” She hesitates for a moment, still gauging him. “The truth is, I think it’s possible to love two people at the same time. I do. Maybe it’s even possible to be in love with two people at the same time. But that’s not enough for me.” She is measured and calm, though she’s delivering an ultimatum. “Do you understand?”

There is something in the silence of the afternoon that makes this moment, the moment his marriage ends, feel almost too calm, too serene. The pale room is suffused with golden sunlight filtered through half-rolled blinds and the only sound is the soft hum of the air conditioning. “I understand,” he says, and that’s when she knows it’s over, too.

 

It’s another week before he’s standing outside Palma airport, hat jammed down over his forehead and sunglasses on, his collar turned up, flagging down a taxi. He gives a street address in Manacor and the driver turns to look at him, raising an eyebrow. “Okay,” he says, and he pulls out into the traffic.

Roger barely sees the mountains on either side of the carretera across the island. He hasn’t called Rafa, doesn’t even know for sure that he’s in Manacor. He hasn’t texted him since he won the US Open. He has spent the week having strange, stilted conversations with Mirka about business arrangements, her continuation as his manager, the division of property. The conversations made him sick to his stomach and every night he lay awake in their bed, alone. “You stay in here,” she said. “You need the mattress.” They had had it specially designed to support his back. The bathroom was bare now that her things were moved to her own ensuite. She moved most of her clothes to her own wardrobe. “There’s so much to sort out,” she said, making a list in her day planner. That’s how she coped, he knew, but it felt devastating all the same.

So he said, “We’ll do everything the way you want it. We can move back to Switzerland, if you like. It’s where the girls will be going to school, anyway.”

“If I’m still your manager, I guess we’ll still travel with you,” she said.

“Yes,” he replied. “I want that. Please.”

She looked at him, clear and practical. “It’s going to be difficult,” she said.

“We’ll find a way,” he replied. “Won’t we?”

It was all so desperately formal. He saw her one evening with red eyes from crying and he folded her into his arms and they cried together.

“You’ve got to go,” she said to him, eventually. “I can’t miss you when you’re still here, and I need to start missing you.”

When he said goodbye to Charlene and Myla, he almost felt as if he’d never see them again. He hugged them until he risked being late for his flight. “I promise I’ll be back really soon,” he said. They knew, though. He could see in them that they knew something was changing, though they still didn’t know what it was.

Roger still doesn’t know what it is. The taxi pulls up outside an apartment building in Manacor and he shoves some euro into the driver’s hand before getting out and taking his suitcase with him. There are a range of doorbells on the door and beside each one is the same name: “Nadal.” After some deliberation, he pushes the topmost one.

It’s just a moment before the door is opened. “Hi,” he says to the girl who answers. It’s Maribel. Roger recognises her from having met her once or twice at parties.

“Roger?” she says. She has the same way of screwing up her nose as Rafa.

“Yeah,” he says, taking off his hat. “Is Rafa here?”

She nods, still surprised. “Sí,” she says. She stands back and shows him into a dim hallway. There are doorways on either side but they are closed. Maribel brings him through to the bright courtyard in the middle of the building. It still smells of warm stone and jasmine, and somewhere someone is cooking with saffron. “Rafa,” she calls up to a second-storey balcony. “Roger aquí.”

“Què?” comes the reply. Then, from a doorway, Rafa emerges. He is tousled looking, wearing shorts and a faded blue t-shirt. “Roger,” he says.

“Hi, Rafa,” says Roger. He feels a little ridiculous now, looking up at a balcony like some lost Romeo. Rafa is astonished and then a smile spreads across his face.

“Qui és?” comes another voice, and that’s when Xisca appears behind Rafa. She follows Rafa’s gaze down to the courtyard, her arm around him. “Roger,” she says, also surprised.

Rafa’s face becomes serious again. “I will come down,” he says, and just touching Xisca’s hand before he turns away, he scrambles down two flights of stairs. He hugs Roger close but then takes a step back, looking around. “What are you doing here?” he says, in a low voice.

“Can we talk, Rafa?” says Roger. “I have—oh god, I think we really need to finally have that talk.”

Rafa just nods and picks up Roger’s suitcase. “Come on,” he says. “I bring you to the guest apartment.” He leads the way back up the stairs to the apartment beside his own. It’s cool inside, though the shutters are open. There’s a breeze rolling up from the sea. Rafa closes the door behind them and puts Roger’s case in the bedroom. The décor is simple but perfect: crisp white sheets on the bed, a wooden chest of drawers that looks like it has seen many generations, a blue sofa in the living room and a rattan easy chair by the window. The floors are of polished wood. “I can’t believe you are here,” says Rafa.

“It’s crazy, I know,” says Roger.

They fall into a kiss, then, and Roger wants to melt into Rafa’s arms. So he does.

“Oh god, Rafa,” he says, as Rafa herds him to the couch and they sit down together. “Mirka and me, we’ve split up.”

“Oh,” says Rafa. “I am so sorry, Roger.” He means it, too.

“She was awake that morning when I got back,” he explains. “I told her everything.”

Rafa is silent for a moment. “You break up because of me?” he says.

“Yeah,” says Roger. “Or, maybe, no. Not because of you. I did it for you. So that we—” He cuts himself off. “I mean, I don’t know what you want, Rafa, you know. You’re still with Xisca, oh my god, you’re engaged. And I just show up here. I know I have no right to do this or to ask you anything. But I just—I just wanted to see you.”

“Roger,” says Rafa, smiling fondly now. He presses a hand to Roger’s face, as if to soothe him. “It’s always okay for you to just show up. And I want—” He is hesitant now, too. They’re both just finding their way towards something, whatever it is that’s between them. “I want you, no? I didn’t know I could be with you, for real.”

Roger smiles now, too. “You can,” he says.

Rafa kisses him again, slow and measured, as if he’s making a statement of intent. “Before all this,” he says then, “I must talk to Mary.”

“Yeah,” says Roger. “Okay.”

“Maybe you are tired? Do you want a shower? Or a siesta?”

“You’re going to talk to her now?”

Rafa shrugs. “I talk to her now or I lie. I think it’s time to tell her.”

Roger nods. “Yeah, I guess it is,” he says. “How long have you two been…?”

“Together?” says Rafa. “Eight years. Nearly eight years.”

“Shit, Rafa.” It all seems so overwhelming. “I’m sorry.”

“Roger,” says Rafa. “I love her, no? She is never second best to me. But if I can be with you, then I must be with you.”

His earnestness almost aches in Roger’s heart. He’s filled with a sense of relief, all of a sudden, as if he is at last near the end of some long journey, one whose beginnings he can’t precisely remember. Perhaps it was that day in Wimbledon when he saw the magazine, or perhaps years ago at that first match in Miami, or maybe even years before that, the day he first held a racket in his hand. “I know what you mean,” he says.

So Rafa shows him how to work the shower and then leaves him to go and talk to Xisca. He hears nothing from the next door apartment as he showers and pulls on some jeans and a t-shirt. He lies down on the bed for a while, and in the quiet of the late afternoon, drowsing in the smell of fresh cotton, a week of wakeful nights catches up with him and soon he falls asleep.

 

It’s nearly dark when he wakes and Rafa is standing over him. “Roger,” he is whispering.

“Rafa,” says Roger. “I didn’t mean to sleep.”

Rafa flicks on the lamp beside the bed. He looks drawn. 

“Shit,” says Roger. “You talked to Xisca?”

Rafa nods. “Yes,” he says. He sits down on the bed beside Roger. “It’s difficult, no? All of this.”

“Yeah,” says Roger. He sits up beside Rafa, pressed against him shoulder to shoulder. “It is. But it’ll be worth it, though? You and me?”

Rafa smiles at that and looks Roger full in the eyes. “Sí,” he says. “For sure it’s worth it.”

“Though, I have to warn you, I’m an old man with a bad back and two daughters,” says Roger.

Rafa laughs. “Well, maybe when I’m fifty I can’t walk, no?” He bends his knees, as if to demonstrate. “I think we are even.”

“Jeez, Raf,” says Roger. “I’m trying to imagine you when you’re fifty.”

“If you stay for twenty-three years, you won’t have to imagine.”

“Well,” says Roger. “I think I’ll stay, then.”


End file.
